


307. a drive to nowhere

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [34]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 01:16:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7664665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helena and Sarah, driving to Cold River in the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	307. a drive to nowhere

They drive through the streets of the city where Helena lives. Sarah is drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, anxious, and Helena wants to move her own fingers – Helena wants to pull her rifle out of the trunk of the car and break it down and put it back together again. Helena still wants to shoot Rachel. Helena wants to reach for the steering wheel and cover Sarah’s unsteady hands with her own, until everything is still.

Instead she pulls her feet off the dashboard, slow, and turns to look out the window. All streetlights and silence. All hush and held breath.

Sarah keeps shooting her

nervous half-glances in the night-light. Helena doesn’t look back, but she can see the whites of Sarah’s eyes flashing in the corner of her vision. Helena just folds Felix’s sleeve over her hand and starts scrubbing at her mouth. Not-Rachel’s lipstick rubs off. Her mouth tastes like candles. (She would know. She’s been so hungry, sometimes. She would know.)

“Hey, don’t do that,” Sarah mutters, and: Helena jolts a little. Her voice is so loud. It’s that time of night, where everything is too loud and too close and too sharp.

Sarah rolls to a stop in front of a flickering red light and rummages in the car door, pulls out a wad of paper napkins. Tosses them into Helena’s lap. Says: “Jesus, just—”

“Okay,” Helena says quietly. She scrubs. The color of the napkins: old blood.

_What was that all about_ , Sarah says. _That bit with the lipstick, what was that_.

Just kidding! That would mean that Sarah cared.

Instead Sarah sighs, and watches the road. The light turns green. Her fingers clatter against the wheel, like dropped bones.

_Did you mean it_ , Helena says. _Now that we are going where you wanted us to go, Sarah, I am starting to think you did not mean it_.

But she isn’t going to say that either. So many unspoken words, in the dark! So many. Enough to make entire conversations. Enough for two people to understand each other. Helena leans closer to the window and watches them go by. _I love you – I’m sorry – it hurts, but it’s worth it – I never meant to – you – you – I missed – you – the bullet – you –_

“Sarah,” she says – softly, but the words are still too loud, the words are loud like things that aren’t gunshots – “I can drive. If you are tired.”

“I’m not tired,” Sarah says.

_Look, no offense,_ Sarah says, _but I don’t trust you with my car_.

(Helena had let Sarah throw her rifle case into the trunk. It landed with a bang. Bang bang. Helena’s hands in her pockets. Her lips still so red. Camping gear on top of the gun, not soft enough to muffle that sound: bang. _Bang!_ )

“Okay,” Helena says again. She goes back to looking out the window. Sarah sighs again.

“Cold River,” she says. “How’d you know about that?”

Helena’s mouth twitches a little bit at the corner. She can tell Sarah feels bad, for yelling at her. Maybe for other things. Probably mostly for yelling at her.

“Maggie,” she says, softsad. “She showed me the way. Never told me why.” She breathes on the window – _haa_ – and draws a little girl alone on the glass. She fades. All that’s left is the dark. Helena misses Maggie. The locker had still smelled like her: perfume and rubbing alcohol.

“Lucky she did,” Sarah says, and they’re on the fast road – the one with fewer cars, the one that goes on and on and on forever. The road blurs by, screaming fast. Helena feels homesick. She swallows. It’s mean, being homesick: she doesn’t even know what it’s for.

“Yes,” she whispers. “Lucky. Lucky, lucky for brother- _sestra_.”

Sarah doesn’t answer; Helena watches from the corner of her eye as her fingers tighten around the wheel. Helena bites her lip and then turns all the way and watches Sarah with both eyes wide open. She loves her. The bristling of her hair, the tight white-knuckle shape of her hands, her brow furrowed, her eyes angry. Helena loves her. She turns sideways, rests the side of her head against the headrest of the seat and watches Sarah. In her head she makes up entire conversations that they could be having right now, a million and one sentences that Helena has always wanted to say.

_But I still love you_. _You know that, don’t you?_

Sarah’s mouth is unmoving. Helena’s lips are held delicately between her teeth. They drive on and on, the world silent, just the two of them and the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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